swiftly that it was pain almost, agony almost, and required all her own
control not to advance too swiftly for him, to control the shaking of
her legs and the pumping of her lungs, to play still the hurt and
bewildered and frightened child, using his kindness, the sense of
chivalry which would not allow him to send her away, in such obvious
distress.
Oh God, how her body churned, her stomach cramped with the strength of
her wanting, her breasts felt swollen and so - sensitive that the
contact of silk and lace was almost too painfully abrasive to bear.
Oh, Nicky, please - Just for a moment. just once, hold me.
Please, I cannot go on alone. just for a moment, please.
She felt him lift his hands, felt the fingers on her shoulders, and the
terrible pain of wanting was too much to bear, she could not control it
- she cried out, it was a soft little whimper, but the force of it shook
her body, and immediately she felt his reaction, Her timing had been
immaculate, her natural womanly cunning had guided her.
His fingers on her shoulders had been gentle and kindly, but now they
hooked cruelly into her flesh.
His back arched involuntarily, his breath drummed from his chest under
her ear, a single agonized exhalation like that of a boxer taking a
heavy body punch. She felt his every muscle come taught, and she knew
again the frightening power, the delirious giddy power she could still
wield.
Then, at last, joyously, almost fearfully, she experienced the great
lordly lift and thrust of his loins - as though the whole world had
moved and shifted about her.
She cried out again, fiercely, for now she could slip the hounds she had
held so short upon the leash, she could let denied, them run and hunt
again. They had been too long but now there was no longer need for care
and restraint.
She knew exactly how to hunt him beyond the frontiers of reason, to
course him like a flying stag, and his fingers tangled frantically in
the foaming lace at her throat as he tried to free her tight swollen
breasts. She cried out a third time, and with a single movement jerked
open the fastening at his waist, exposing the full hard lean length of
his body, and her hands were as frantic as his.
,oh, sweet God, you're so hard and strong - oh sweet God, I've missed
you so. There was time later for all the refinements and nuances of
love, but now her need was too cruel and demanding to be denied another
moment. it had to happen this instant before she died of the lack.
Nicholas rose slowly towards the surface of sleep, aware of a brooding
sense of regret. just before he reached consciousness, a dream image
formed in his sleep-starved brain, he relived a moment from the distant
past. A fragment of time, recaptured so vividly as to seem whole and
perfect.
Long ago he had picked a deep-sea trumpet shell at five fathoms from the
oceanic wall of the coral reef beyond the Anse Baudoin lagoon of Praslin
Island, it was the size of a ripe coconut and once again he found
himself holding the shell in both cupped hands gazing into the narrow
